


Absence

by extasiswings



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Holidays Can Be Difficult, Timeless Fanfic Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 20:39:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13084920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: For the December fanfic contest. This is for the general prompt "Christmas" and for the individual who wanted Lucy and Flynn dealing with the holidays without their families.“It doesn’t. If you’re wondering.”Lucy looks over at him.“Doesn’t what?”“Get easier,” Flynn clarifies. “Missing them."





	Absence

_Bah, humbug,_ Lucy thinks, glancing around the room as she tucks herself further into the corner. 

Rittenhouse, or no Rittenhouse, the general consensus the week before seemed to be that Mason Industries was going to have its annual Christmas party anyway and since they could all do with some cheering up, attendance was...well, if not explicitly mandatory, certainly very _strongly_ suggested. Which is why Lucy is in a corner staring at a room that looks like the holidays threw up over it instead of at home, alone, under a blanket without a trace of tinsel in sight. 

_Bah, humbug. Indeed._

It isn’t that she doesn’t like the holiday season. But Amy had always been the more festive one, the one who went all out and corralled everyone else into doing the same. Lucy likes the holidays. Amy _loves_ them. 

Loved. Past-tense.

Across the room, Wyatt laughs at something Jiya said and pulls her focus. She could join him, she knows. Him and Rufus and Jiya. She could slap a smile on and at least _try_ to enjoy herself. Maybe it would even work.

But she doesn’t. 

She’s tired. So tired. 

She misses Amy. She misses her mother—at least, the person she thought her mother was. Hell, she misses the person she used to be before all of this started. And when she’s drowning in bone-deep melancholy, when her insides are thoroughly twisted up from grief and anger and a thousand other things she can’t name, the thought of pretending at anything for even a minute is unbearable. 

Setting her drink down on the nearest table, Lucy slips out of the room without another thought. 

A few minutes, then she’ll be able to stomach going back. She just needs a few minutes alone.

Except, when she steps out onto the balcony she expected to be abandoned, it isn’t.

Flynn doesn’t look up from where he’s leaning against the outside wall at the sound of her footsteps, instead keeping his gaze fixed on the flask he’s turning over in his hands. 

She should go. And yet, somehow her desire to be alone isn’t fussed by his presence. Maybe because he hasn’t looked at her, maybe because he’s clearly looking to be alone as well.

Maybe because half the time Garcia Flynn doesn’t even act like he likes her, so he sure as hell isn’t going to pity her.

(The other half of the time, she thinks he does like her. Or maybe even more than like her, if she wants to be elementary about it. When she catches him staring out of the corner of her eye and can’t breathe for the intensity of it. When she remembers how he’d looked at her before Denise had shown up to drag him off.

He hasn’t forgiven her for that. She’s not sure if he will. But somehow it’s still easier to be around him than the rest of them.)

It’s instinct that causes her to close the space between them and swipe the flask. Lucy ignores the look Flynn gives her for it, instead unscrewing the top and tipping it back to swallow a mouthful.

She then promptly swears. At least, once she stops coughing. 

“That’s disgusting,” she rasps, her eyes still watering from the fierce burn of the alcohol. 

Amusement flits across Flynn’s face for half a moment before his expression shutters again.

“Well, there’s a reason I wasn’t drinking it.”

Despite that, when she hands back the flask, he does take a sip, managing it much more gracefully than she had.

“You’re not inside,” Lucy says after an awkward pause.

“Neither are you,” Flynn replies. 

“I—” Lucy looks down at the floor, fixing her eyes on a small crack. “It was too much.”

He doesn’t say anything, but the flask appears in her line of sight when he holds it out. She takes it as a sign—a peace offering, a momentary truce in their rollercoaster of a relationship. The burn isn’t as bad the second time.

As they pass the flask back and forth, the silence stretches on. But Lucy finds she doesn’t mind it. In fact, it’s preferable to the laughter and cheery music in the main hall. A wake rather than a celebration, maybe for themselves as much as those they’ve lost. Either way, it feels appropriate.

It’s Flynn who finally breaks the silence after draining the last of the flask.

“It doesn’t. If you’re wondering.”

Lucy looks over at him.

“Doesn’t what?”

“Get easier,” he clarifies. “Missing them. Or, if it does, it hasn’t happened for me yet.” 

She considers that. 

“It _hurts_.”

Flynn nods once. “I know.”

“How do you stand it?”

He looks away, shoulders slumping as though she’s asked for the secrets to the universe.

“You find other things, other people, to fill the gaps. Distract yourself.” His voice is rough and defeated in a way Lucy’s rarely heard him sound. 

“Does that actually work?” She asks.

Flynn shrugs and pushes off the wall, heading for the door. 

“Sometimes,” he says. 

“Flynn.”

Lucy really couldn’t say what compels her to do it, but she’s tired—so very tired—of hurting, of denying herself things she wants because that’s the more rational or responsible choice, of so many things. And so when he pauses in the doorway, she lifts up on her toes, curls two fingers into his collar to tug him down further—(too damn tall, honestly this would be easier if he were Wyatt’s height)—and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

_Distract yourself._

She’s close enough that she can feel Flynn’s lips part on a sharp intake of breath, the way he freezes in place with one hand inches from her waist as though it had come up on instinct to touch her. She imagines kissing him again—fully, completely, instead of this half-measure she’s allowed herself—but she can’t.

“Mistletoe,” Lucy offers as an excuse as she slowly releases him. Flynn’s eyes flick up to the doorframe—sure enough, it’s there. Something passes over his face—disappointment, but simultaneously desperation and relief—and then, collecting himself, he nods once and takes a step back.

“Goodnight, Lucy.”

“Goodnight.”

There’s no reason she should be so shaken as she watches him go, but she suddenly feels more tired and alone than she had before she’d come out on the balcony in the first place. 

_One step forward, twelve steps back._ Or something like that. That’s always how it is with them. 

With a sigh, Lucy lets her head fall back against the wall and closes her eyes. 

_Bah, humbug._


End file.
